AKSHAT GOYAL

There are two distinct approaches for architecture to be termed aesthetic.

“Ethnographic is the effort to understand the aesthetic dimensions in the culture of the builders and users of traditional architecture”.

“Responsive is to select neglected buildings and to bring them into a circle of consideration”.

Some examples of Ethnographic is work such as public branch libraries or smaller shops, which take into consideration the architecture that surrounds the site and try to blend in without causing a disruption into the environment, whereas Responsive is work such as museums or tourist attractions whose point is to bring a new typology into consideration. Most buildings nowadays are made with both ‘ethnographic’ and ‘responsive’ in mind.

The Idea of the Aesthetic

“Aesthetic is defined as the affective aspect of communication, the dimension that enlivens feeling, exciting the pleasure of the senses”.  It comes from the ability to distinguish between the pleasant and the unpleasant, which is unified by the culture of the people, since culture unifies people with shared experiences.

Aesthetic meaning comes when intention for pleasure and pleasure response matches, i.e. in architecture terms, when the aesthetic created by the architect satisfies the client who responds to said aesthetic.

Architecture communication can be divided into utilitarian (bodily work such as shelter, cultural work, historical and religious references) and aesthetic components (act of building, design, construction, appearance and occupation).

Ethnographic students focus on the study of how builders manage the aesthetic aspects of their culture during the creative act whereas Responsive students focus on their own aesthetic reactions neglecting the builder’s intentions. However, both are necessary.

Expression

Clearest materialization of the relation of the aesthetic to the utilitarian is found in the useful building encrusted with ornament. Decoration or ornament covers the façade which makes the façade a backdrop for artistic expression.

The division of form and ornament is most striking in many vernacular traditions such as in Indian temples or Nubian houses, ornamentation exists on both the interior and exterior; in Ireland and Turkey, the exterior is plain for utility whereas the interior is lavished with color, texture and pattern.

Even the patterns of technical execution are essential to many aesthetic traditions such as the elaborate joinery in Japanese and English timber framing, earth in West Africa, cane in Bangladesh, stone in Anatolia.

“If form follows function perfectly, as study restricted to small areas suggest, then buildings identical in function would be identical in form. But they are not.”

It proves that architecture traditions are rich in diversity owed to culture’s aesthetic dimensions due to how culture’s lean towards different kinds of aesthetic of plainness or decoration; symmetry or asymmetry; discontinuity or continuity of form when facing similar practical problems.

Response

Most often the response which people give to the buildings and their aesthetics is isolated from the creators and users. The varieties of response in the observer may be categorized along a scale of removal from the intentions of the builder –

• Leading from interpretation, in which the observer or student attempts to work at a distance by constructing a theory of intention of the builder, eliminating all its own intentions.
• Through conservation, in which the study is less rigorous but some feeling of the builder’s goals remains. The loose sense of intention is commingled in the viewer’s response, which is derived from his or her own system of values, to select some buildings as worthy of recording or preservation.
• Lastly consumption, in which the response is perfected. In which the buildings are appreciated entirely from the observer’s structure of value.

Bibliography

All the quotes are from the reference below.

Glassie, Henry. “Aesthetic.” Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World, edited by Paul Oliver, 1997, pp.3-5.

Continue Reading (Also reference for Images)

Asanova, Asene. Made of mud: The historical conical dome houses of Harran. Daily Sabah, 18 June 2021, https://www.dailysabah.com/life/travel/made-of-mud-the-historical-conical-dome-houses-of-harran. Accessed 18 June 2024.

Yakubu, Paul. Motifs and Ornamentations: Inspirations Behind the Colors of African Traditional Architecture. ArchDaily, 11 August 2023, https://www.archdaily.com/1005269/motifs-and-ornamentations-inspirations-behind-the-colors-of-africa-traditional-architecture. Accessed 18 June 2024.